Maude Oselen interview recording, 1994 June 27

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Michele Mitchell	Today's date is the—	0:01
Maude Oselen	28th.	0:02
Michele Mitchell	28th of June?	0:03
Maude Oselen	June, mm-hmm.	0:04
Michele Mitchell	Could you state your name and spell your first name and your last name?	0:06
Maude Oselen	Maude. M-A-U-D-E. Oselen. O-S-E-L-E-N.	0:09
Michele Mitchell	First of all, Ms. Oselen—Oselen?	0:21
Maude Oselen	Oselen.	0:23
Michele Mitchell	Where were you born?	0:24
Maude Oselen	New Orleans.	0:25
Michele Mitchell	New Orleans?	0:26
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm.	0:27
Michele Mitchell	Were you born at home, in a hospital?	0:27
Maude Oselen	Charity Hospital.	0:31
Michele Mitchell	Charity Hospital?	0:31
Maude Oselen	Yes.	0:32
Michele Mitchell	How many brothers and sisters did you have?	0:33
Maude Oselen	Two brothers and one sister.	0:36
Michele Mitchell	You were just telling me a minute ago about what it was like growing up and playing. Could you describe a little bit of that right now?	0:42
Maude Oselen	My sisters and brothers, we played together. We didn't have any problem and my mother didn't discuss anything. My mother died when I was 12 and I was busy being the mom of the family. It wasn't until I was grown that I realized the problem that we was having with the race, only because of my children. They couldn't go in parks. We lived across the street from a park, on Aline and Annunciation, and my children had to stay out and they couldn't go in. The swimming pools, they couldn't go swimming.	0:48
Maude Oselen	I used to do domestic work and when I'd come home, sometimes they had two seats ahead, and a White person was sitting there and they wouldn't get up and I had to stand. I hated that piece of wood that you had to put. I felt like throwing it out of the window, like most of the people said they did. I hated that. My kids couldn't go in the restaurant. I made sure they went to the bathroom before they left home. That was a must. My little boy, he used to have to urine behind the bush. The bathroom was right there, but we wasn't allowed.	1:24
Michele Mitchell	When you said that you did domestic work, did you take the train? Not the train—	2:01
Maude Oselen	The bus.	2:06
Michele Mitchell	The bus?	2:07
Maude Oselen	Yes.	2:07
Michele Mitchell	Not the street car?	2:08
Maude Oselen	Street car too.	2:09
Michele Mitchell	Was it worse on the street car or on the bus or the same, or did it depend?	2:11
Maude Oselen	It was the same. It was the same.	2:14
Michele Mitchell	Yeah? Which neighborhood did you live in?	2:16
Maude Oselen	I lived 13th Ward, Aline and Annunciation, for a number of years. When I was little, I lived on Galvez, between Poydras and Perdido. There wasn't a playground, but there was a lawn intersection, and we used to play on that. We didn't know anything about playgrounds really, so there wasn't a problem. My sister and brother, like I said, we was happy among ourselves.	2:20
Michele Mitchell	You were the oldest?	2:47
Maude Oselen	No, I had a brother older than me. I was the oldest girl.	2:49
Michele Mitchell	Was it a neighborhood that had a few Whites in it?	2:56
Maude Oselen	No, not in my neighborhood. All Blacks.	2:58
Michele Mitchell	All Blacks?	3:00
Maude Oselen	Yeah, in my neighborhood.	3:01
Michele Mitchell	Were there Black stores?	3:03
Maude Oselen	No, they had White stores, and they had a Black church, St. Mark's Fourth Baptist on Perdido and Galvez. That was our church.	3:05
Michele Mitchell	St. Mark's?	3:15
Maude Oselen	Fourth Baptist. St. Marks Fourth Baptist church on Galvez and Perdido.	3:16
Michele Mitchell	And it was an all Black church?	3:27
Maude Oselen	Yes.	3:28
Michele Mitchell	Yes? So I mean—	3:30
Maude Oselen	No problem.	3:31
Michele Mitchell	No problems?	3:32
Maude Oselen	Yeah, when I was coming up. Like I said, my mother died when I was 12 and we was kept inside on the lawn and we played amongst ourselves. Had a few friends in the neighborhood, but we was happy children. Like I said, it wasn't until my children ran into problems, I felt bad. When they used to watch television, they asked me why they didn't have Blacks on. Then when they did have them, they let them talk funny and I didn't like that. Sometime I didn't even want to watch it, the way they spoke.	3:33
Michele Mitchell	I mean, are you talking about Beulah, Amos 'n' Andy?	4:05
Maude Oselen	Yeah.	4:07
Michele Mitchell	Which show are you talking about?	4:07
Maude Oselen	Yeah. That's the one I'm talking about. They didn't speak well and that hurt my feelings. Sometimes I didn't even watch it. A lot of people thought they were funny, but I didn't. I guess a little prejudice in me about that.	4:08
Michele Mitchell	No, that's—I'm trying to get a sense of what year this is. This is around your children, around the 50s?	4:23
Maude Oselen	Yes, around the 50s. My children all were born in the 50s. Then when I was taking care of the children, they used to call me Black. I said, I'm not Black. My daughter, she told me I shouldn't do that. I used to tell them, "What color is that refrigerator?" They said, White. I said, "Well, you're not that color." I pointed something Black. I said, "What color is that?" They said Black. I said, "Well, you see, I'm not that color." I was very upset about that. My daughter told me I shouldn't have did that, but I did it because I got tired of them telling me that I was Black. I said, "I'm not Black."	4:32
Michele Mitchell	Could you—My mother has always, always preferred Colored, always. Is there a term that you prefer other than Black?	5:09
Maude Oselen	No. They didn't call me Black to just call me a Black person. They used to say, "You are Black," and things like that, say, "because you are Black." Then my doctor's little girl right now, she'll say, "but color don't matter." I'd say, "Certainly don't." She's six years old. No, it's okay to say it in talking, but they used to just tell me that, "You are Black and I'm White," and I didn't like that.	5:21
Michele Mitchell	You're talking more in terms of, "Just refer to me as a person?"	5:48
Maude Oselen	Yes, that's right. I'm Maude, and then anyway, I'm brown. That's what I'd tell them. I'd said, "What color are you?," and I wanted to be nasty when I was hurt and tired. They'd said, "I don't know," and my daughter would said, "You see, you shouldn't do that. You was wrong." I said, "No, that'll teach them to stop saying I'm Black." She'd say I confused them when I asked them what color was they, if they wasn't White like the refrigerator. They stopped it though. That was rude to me, but I did it. I guess that's called striking back. I don't know.	5:51
Michele Mitchell	You were already a mother when you did this?	6:24
Maude Oselen	Pardon?	6:26
Michele Mitchell	You were already a mother?	6:27
Maude Oselen	Yes, I was minding babies then.	6:27
Michele Mitchell	Yeah. How many children do you have?	6:30
Maude Oselen	I have two living. My oldest daughter died of ovarian cancer in '86. She was 33.	6:33
Michele Mitchell	You got a son?	6:39
Maude Oselen	Yeah. Son and a daughter left. Yep.	6:44
Michele Mitchell	You grew up in New Orleans. Did you ever leave New Orleans?	6:50
Maude Oselen	No. Always, all my life. I've been on vacations, trips, but I've been here all my life.	6:53
Michele Mitchell	Who did you work for, ma'am?	7:00
Maude Oselen	Doctors and lawyers.	7:02
Michele Mitchell	Would you be willing to say a little bit what that was like in terms of work?	7:04
Maude Oselen	Just hard work, but they were all good to me. If I needed anything, and my son was going away to school, the wife came with the baby and changing the diaper in the car and took me to the airport, and used her charge to buy everything my son needed for the trip, and I paid her back. She's a doctor and he's a lawyer. Then I worked for two other lawyers. I used to clean up in the morning for retired school teachers. All of them dead, but one, Elisabetta Starch. One of them, she used to say I had my kids and they had their money. I said, "Well, anybody can get money, but anybody can't get kids." She used to refer to me as "Girl," and I said, "I'm not a girl. I'm a woman more than you." I said, "because I'm a grandmother too."	7:07
Maude Oselen	She'd never been married. I said, "I'm not a girl." One day a lady here said, "How you doing, gal?" I said, "I'm Maude." She said, "Oh, we call girls guys, and we call them gal." I said, "Well, I don't like it. Called me Maude." I used to live next to some old White maids. They both dead now. When my son was little, they said, "How is that boy? I said, "Ah, his name is Allen."	7:58
Maude Oselen	I said, "He's going to be a man and you all going to still be calling him boy." I said, "he's Allen," and they shoo shoo among themselves. I guess one lady told him I was sassy. I said, "I can't be sassy at my age. I'm a grown woman." When I told her, "Don't call me girl." That's the only thing. I was too busy working. I was hurt, but I guess we was taught to overlook it. It was wrong. Our daughter who died, she was the first Black woman in administration at DePaul. She had White friends, came to my house and just almost moved in. No problem.	8:24
Maude Oselen	My baby girl, she's a little prejudice. She's 40. She's boss on her job. My son had problems, drug and alcohol, but Cynthia, we had the therapist come in and a lot of times she just got up and walked out. They said that was okay. But she—I don't know. I don't think nobody did or nothing, but she was real about that.	9:09
Michele Mitchell	Did they go to have to integrated schools or did they go to Black schools?	9:37
Maude Oselen	They went to Black schools, all Black schools. I tell her she shouldn't be like that. I said, "because they got good and bad." That's what I tell her. I don't know. Some of the children I work for, I can't talk about them to her. She don't want to hear it. If I talk, I know that she'd have expression on her face, so I don't say anything. Something a kid said was cute or something. I say maybe—I'm wondering if she's like that because I worked all my life and spent more time at work than at home, or if she just don't like—She's very prejudice. I got a feeling she's like that.	9:41
Michele Mitchell	Have you always felt—You said something interesting a while back. You said that you felt that there are good and bad.	10:23
Maude Oselen	Yes. I told her that they were good and bad.	10:35
Michele Mitchell	You felt that they were good and bad in the '50s too?	10:40
Maude Oselen	Yes. Yes, there was.	10:42
Michele Mitchell	Did that mean anything in terms of getting around town on the street cars, that sometimes there would be a bus driver or a street car operator who—	10:51
Maude Oselen	That was mean?	11:00
Michele Mitchell	That was, or not mean.	11:01
Maude Oselen	Some of them good. Like I said, there's good and bad in everybody. You know when a person is prejudiced. You have that feeling. You say you don't care, but you're confused why they feel like that, because we all human.	11:05
Michele Mitchell	You feel that way after seeing lots of things?	11:29
Maude Oselen	Yes. I don't like the movies when Blacks be getting hurt or something. My son-in-law, he getting mad. I tell him, "Don't watch," but it hurts my feeling. When that Rodney King bit came up, that really hurt me and my daughter former boss. She's boss now. He told her he didn't stay still. She said, "Well, how would you feel if somebody beating you? You wouldn't stay still; you'd be trying to get out the way." My doctor, I babysit for him. He said, "but he was a bum." I said, "He still was human." Then I got to thinking on him. Anyway, those little things I guess are just your common sense. It happens. I was sorry he said that, because the man was hurt. Also, the other man was hurt, who they beat up, the man in the truck. That was wrong, what they did him?	11:33
Maude Oselen	[crosstalk 00:12:36]	12:36
Maude Oselen	Yes. I felt sorry for him. I was mad with the ones who was kicking him. Human. Okay?	12:36
Michele Mitchell	The only other thing I need just to ask you is, just the date that you were born and stuff like that, just for record-keeping.	12:54
Maude Oselen	February 3rd, 1934. I'm 60.	13:04
Michele Mitchell	Really?	13:12
Maude Oselen	February the 3rd, 1934.	13:20
Michele Mitchell	Just did that wrong. Anyway. You were born in New Orleans?	13:27
Maude Oselen	Yes. Charity Hospital.	13:30
Michele Mitchell	Any of these questions I'm going to ask, this is all for record keeping, historical record. Anything I ask that you don't want to answer.	13:44
Maude Oselen	Okay.	13:50
Michele Mitchell	That's fine. Are you divorced, widowed?	13:50
Maude Oselen	Divorced	13:57
Michele Mitchell	Divorced? Your husband's name was?	14:01
Maude Oselen	Morris Oselen.	14:02
Michele Mitchell	Morris?	14:05
Maude Oselen	M-O-R-R-I-S O-S-E-L-E-N.	14:05
Michele Mitchell	Do you know when he was born?	14:12
Maude Oselen	No. I don't remember.	14:13
Michele Mitchell	Okay, but was he born here?	14:16
Maude Oselen	It was short. Yes, he was born in New Orleans. I was married twice. My first husband is in California. Lucien Holloway.	14:17
Michele Mitchell	Really?	14:30
Maude Oselen	I divorced him in 1965, and married Morris.	14:32
Michele Mitchell	And Lucian is L?	14:38
Maude Oselen	L-U-C-I-E-N H-O-L-L-O-W-A-Y, Holloway.	14:40
Michele Mitchell	And was he from New Orleans too?	14:51
Maude Oselen	Yes.	14:54
Michele Mitchell	Then your mother's name, ma'am?	14:58
Maude Oselen	Fanny May Armstrong. Her marriage name was Richey.	14:59
Michele Mitchell	Her marriage name?	15:06
Maude Oselen	R-I-C-H-E-Y.	15:07
Michele Mitchell	That's your maiden name?	15:11
Maude Oselen	Yes.	15:12
Michele Mitchell	Do you know when she was born about?	15:19
Maude Oselen	No.	15:26
Michele Mitchell	No?	15:26
Speaker 1	Excuse me.	15:26
Michele Mitchell	She was born in New Orleans as well?	15:26
Maude Oselen	Yes. She was 43 when she died and she died in 46. If you can go back and find out how old. I never knew. I was 12 when she died.	15:27
Michele Mitchell	She died when she was 43?	15:44
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm.	15:46
Michele Mitchell	Did she—What sort of jobs did she do?	15:55
Maude Oselen	None. She took care of us, but you know that I know—	15:58
Michele Mitchell	She raised you?	16:04
Maude Oselen	Yes.	16:04
Michele Mitchell	Well, that's a job.	16:04
Maude Oselen	Yeah, she had three boys, really, and two girls. One of my brothers died, and one of them I never knew. She raised four of us at home.	16:04
Michele Mitchell	The ones that she raised at home, what were their names?	16:16
Maude Oselen	The oldest was Lloyd Ritchie.	16:19
Michele Mitchell	Lloyd?	16:21
Maude Oselen	L-L-O-Y-D. Maude, myself, Raymond. He died. Richey, he died in 88, and Anna Rose.	16:22
Michele Mitchell	Anna Rose?	16:35
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm, and my dad was a porter.	16:36
Michele Mitchell	Your father was a porter?	16:45
Maude Oselen	Yeah. Darlene's hotel. It's still over there on—I'm not sure. What's the street Gallier Hall on?	16:48
Michele Mitchell	I don't know.	16:55
Maude Oselen	Well, it's right down the street from Gallier Hall, right back of Lafayette Park, Orleans Hotel. He used to be at Porter there. It's still there. He died in '51.	16:56
Michele Mitchell	What was his name, ma'am?	17:10
Maude Oselen	Robert.	17:11
Michele Mitchell	Robert?	17:12
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm.	17:13
Michele Mitchell	Richey?	17:16
Maude Oselen	Yes.	17:16
Michele Mitchell	R-I-C-H?	17:17
Maude Oselen	E-Y.	17:18
Michele Mitchell	E-Y?	17:19
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm.	17:20
Michele Mitchell	New Orleans?	17:23
Maude Oselen	Yes. No, I'm sorry. Alabama. Mobile, Alabama.	17:23
Michele Mitchell	Born in Mobile?	17:26
Maude Oselen	Yes.	17:28
Michele Mitchell	It's always been interesting to me how people are born one place and they get another place.	17:35
Maude Oselen	Yeah.	17:39
Michele Mitchell	I don't want to make an assumption. Are you Catholic?	17:49
Maude Oselen	I was Christian Methodist, raised in a Baptist church, and I always worked on the weekend. I said whenever I start working, the closest church, that's the church I'll go to. In 1990, I was re-conditionally baptized into Blessed Sacrament Church on Constance.	17:52
Michele Mitchell	Which is Catholic?	18:09
Maude Oselen	Yes.	18:10
Michele Mitchell	That's your affiliation now? Where you go is Blessed Sacrament?	18:13
Maude Oselen	Yes. I don't go like I should. Last Sunday, I went to a Baptist church. This Sunday I didn't go anywhere. I was tired. It was hot too. I cheated. I felt guilty all day yesterday though, but I stayed in.	18:16
Michele Mitchell	It was hot.	18:31
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm, babysitting until quarter to one yesterday morning. I babysit Friday and I babysit Tuesday, and I came over here. I just took off.	18:32
Michele Mitchell	You do childcare as well then?	18:42
Maude Oselen	Just babysit. I'm on total disability. They broke my leg and took the bone and put in my neck in 85 and it damaged the nerve in my leg.	18:44
Michele Mitchell	Really? Which hospital was this at?	18:51
Maude Oselen	Charity.	18:54
Michele Mitchell	Well, you don't seem to be bitter about it.	19:00
Maude Oselen	No, I'm not. It just happened.	19:02
Michele Mitchell	See, I didn't know that Charity Hospital still—People have been telling me about it, but I didn't know that it's still here. Does it still exist?	19:08
Maude Oselen	Yes.	19:15
Michele Mitchell	Yeah?	19:15
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm.	19:16
Michele Mitchell	Where is it?	19:16
Maude Oselen	It's on Tulane. I don't know the address, but all my kids was born there too, and all the surgery I had was there. The doctor who did my neck, he's from New Zealand. That's the one I babysit for right now.	19:17
Michele Mitchell	How many children does he have?	19:34
Maude Oselen	Three.	19:35
Michele Mitchell	Three? Are they a trouble?	19:36
Maude Oselen	No. Sometimes they don't listen, but when I get mad they listen, because they know a spanking coming up. One's three years old and one's six and one is nine, be nine in August. He's the best. Only thing, he want everything his way, the one nine. The little girl, she the one tells me all that time, "You are Black, but that's all right, because we all the same." She always going, because she know it upset me, I guess. She used to be standoffish, but now she stay under me. She went to Florida yesterday, and she always kissed me on my clothes, and she kissed me on my cheek.	19:39
Michele Mitchell	Really?	20:27
Maude Oselen	The other night. I said, "Mm-hmm, improvement," because she do. She stays close to me. Her mom. I told her mom, I said, "You know this," I said, "Wherever I sit, she come and she sit, and she got to touch me." Since she was a baby, because I went when the little boy was a year. He'll be nine and she's six. She always kissed me on the clothes and she hugged me, but she don't never touch me. Then the other night she kissed me on the cheek and said, "Bye. I'm going to bring you a rock from Florida." Good morning. The little boy, he three. I said, "Ah, not on the lip." He be on me trying to catch my lip. I said, "Uh-huh, I don't kiss my children on the lip. We kiss on the cheek," but he be aiming for them lips. He don't know.	20:27
Michele Mitchell	That's something.	21:22
Maude Oselen	Yep.	21:23
Michele Mitchell	Your own children, what were their names?	21:26
Maude Oselen	Debra? My oldest daughter, she passed.	21:29
Michele Mitchell	D-E-B?	21:32
Maude Oselen	R-A. That's Debra Ann Holloway. She wasn't married. Cynthia.	21:33
Michele Mitchell	That's your youngest, right?	21:44
Maude Oselen	Yes, my youngest daughter. She's married. Do you want her marriage name?	21:45
Michele Mitchell	Yeah.	21:53
Maude Oselen	McCaskill, Capital. M-C-C-A-S-K-I-L-L.	21:54
Michele Mitchell	K-I-L-L. McCaskill?	21:58
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm. My son is Allen Joseph Holloway.	22:01
Michele Mitchell	A-L?	22:05
Maude Oselen	L-E-N. Now, just leave it like that.	22:05
Michele Mitchell	Joseph?	22:08
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm. Holloway.	22:08
Michele Mitchell	They were all born here in New Orleans?	22:15
Maude Oselen	Yes.	22:16
Michele Mitchell	You told me that.	22:17
Maude Oselen	Yes.	22:19
Michele Mitchell	Do you have any grandchildren?	22:20
Maude Oselen	Yes. My granddaughter comes here in the day for lunch and eat lunch with me. I have a grandson, 14, Bernell Junior, and Brandy Marie.	22:30
Michele Mitchell	There's two?	22:43
Maude Oselen	Yes.	22:44
Michele Mitchell	Well, the last thing I'm going to ask you, and I'll seriously go.	22:46
Maude Oselen	Okay.	22:50
Michele Mitchell	I'm going to ask you—	22:51
Maude Oselen	It's okay.	22:51
Michele Mitchell	Besides your address, I just want to know if you think that things have gotten better or worse overall?	22:55
Maude Oselen	Sometimes you wonder. Sometime, like I say, you know. You feel it and you know. You'll be around people and something come up and you said, "Oh, there it is. When is it going to end?" I get upset. I get mad, really. If I don't be around the situation, I'm okay. You're going to be in contact with it some kind of way. The other day I told you here, that woman upset me and she'd been avoiding me too.	23:01
Michele Mitchell	Well, Mrs. Oselen, thank you very much. Thank you.	23:41
Maude Oselen	Mm-hmm.	23:41

Item Info

Title:

Maude Oselen interview recording, 1994 June 27

Date:

June 27, 1994

Creator:

Oselen, Maude Richey

Contributor:

Mitchell, Michele

Description:

Name: Maude Richey Oselen; Date of birth: 1934-02-03; Place of birth: New Orleans,LA; Occupation(s): domestic; childcare; Residence: New Orleans, LA
Informant ID: 575; Interviewed by: Michelle Mitchell.

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English

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Behind the Veil

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Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

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The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

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Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

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40fd9170-1b31-4671-8892-7999e3a201fe
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c2f64a4c-466a-478c-87a9-e354b18104fb
ark:/87924/r4n87f829
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Maude Oselen interview recording, 1994 June 27

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1. Maude Oselen administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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